JooJoo

This Monday we were treated to the final reveal of what the mysterious "TabCo" group was and what sort of tablet they'd be making that would, as they said several times, "reinvent the wheel." This presentation began with an absurd video filled with a collection of the worst possible set of actors that whoever is in charge of casting for TabCo was able to find - a line spoken in the video encapsulates the absurdity: "Okay, Bye, Hungry?" What was supposed to act as a revelation and a simple showing of a brand new way of going about working in the mobile market quickly descended into a renewed set of confusing points of order and a tablet which, in fact, wasn't going to be made or branded with the TabCo name at all - it was all a front!

TabCo has come clean, and as expected the "brand behind the brand" is Fusion Garage. The CEO behind the underwhelming JooJoo, Chandra Rathakrishnan, is back with his team's second attempt at a tablet, along with the confession that "our initial [JooJoo] hype did not meet the performance of the product." Grid 10 is the slate he believes will change all that, based on the Android kernel but with "a stunning" interface on top.

Mysterious tablet company TabCo has seemingly spoilt its own surprise unveil, confirming that the slate it plans to officially unveil later on today is the Grid 10 we saw Fusion Garage push through FCC testing in late July. Going by a German-language tweet, TabCo is the new name for the JooJoo manufacturer, and the Grid 10 their Android-based second attempt at the tablet market.

Fusion Garage might be looking to their second-gen tablets - expected to arrive in the first half of 2011 with Android and a custom UI - but rumors that the original JooJoo had been axed seem to have been premature. The company has announced a reseller agreement for the original tablet, which will see Japanese firm ASTEC bumping JooJoo's storage to 16GB and then doing what's necessary to "customize joojoo for business applications."

Fusion Garage's JooJoo tablet hasn't exactly set the world alight - though it is keeping some lawyers in business - but the Singaporean start-up is already looking to the second-gen model. According to Gizmodo, the new JooJoo is expected to arrive in early 2011, and use Android as its OS. While it may not have access to the Android Market, Google's policies depending, what Fusion Garage is working on is their own UI system which pulls together messaging and social networking.

Fusion Garage are coming in for some criticism over their handling of the JooJoo tablet's software, with open-source advocates discovering that the company aren't distributing their source code as required by the GPL. Matthew Garrett spent some hands-on time with the JooJoo recently, and aside from some concerns over the hardware - "pretty much held together by string and a following wind" is how he describes the slate - his biggest complaint is that not only is the source for Fusion Garage's modified Ubuntu OS not available, when he contacted them they told him they're not yet distributing it.

The JooJoo is one of those tablets that may have been more suited for the past, instead of the present. While the CEO of Fusion Garage firmly believes that his tablet device, formerly known as the CrunchPad, is better than the competition, sales numbers, and reviews, would likely speak to the opposite effect. So, if you were one of the handful of people out there to actually order (and receive) your JooJoo, we've got some exciting news for you! You can now install OS X on it.

Fusion Garage has confirmed that the promised JooJoo software update has been released OTA to existing owners. Tipped to address UI problems and bring full-screen Flash video playback to the iPad-alternative, the new firmware has also been loaded onto demo JooJoo units Fusion Garage have been toting for their European roll-out; unfortunately, judging by some hands-on impressions with the updated unit, it's still not perfect.

The good news just keeps on coming for the JooJoo. It's about time, too, considering early reviews aren't necessarily the brightest. And, while Fusion Garage's CEO, Chandra Rathakrishnan says that new software, along with a European launch, are on the way, this new bit of news from the company's head is definitely a little bit more worthwhile.

Would-be JooJoo buyers in Europe can now order Fusion Garage's web-slate, with the company's online store being updated to offer international shipping. The tablet - which is priced at $499 in the US - comes in at £319 ($486) in the UK and €359 ($474) in mainland Europe. Meanwhile, according to the new Fusion Garage blog, sales have increased as the JooJoo proves it's not vaporware, while the company accepts that they've handled some things poorly and promises a fast-approaching software update.

Fusion Garage's JooJoo tablet wasn't exactly the storming success the company might have hoped for, and finally shipping only days in advance of the iPad going on sale certainly didn't help matters. So just how many JooJoo tablets were sold? Going by a shoddily constructed email that looks to have gone out to all of the company's customers, the total could be just 64.